Hot Rod
by Strop
Summary: Roddy spends her nights street racing, but thanks to one particular Aston Martin, she's stuck with a permanent position in second place. Determined to get her prize money, she strikes a deal with Knockout, the car's elusive driver. But when an Autobot ambush forces Knockout to reveal his true identity, winning a race suddenly becomes the least of Roddy's concerns.
1. Chapter 1

"hey strop why do you keep writing stories about your trashy OCs instead of working on your real fanfic" because i hate fun and enjoy suffering. im glad we had this talk.

* * *

The love of Roddy's life lived somewhere in the backcountry of northern Oregon, frantically working in Skype calls between bouts of artistic collegiate fervor. Her average mile time, Roddy knew, was about fifteen minutes.

In comparison, the loathe of Roddy's life occupied a position approximately five feet in front of her fenders, cruising along at a little over seventy miles an hour. She'd been furiously tailgating the hotrod for the past mile and a half, working her car's ten-year-old engine for all it was worth. If she could manage to slip past before the canal narrowed up ahead, she'd be guaranteed first place; if not, there went her monthly allowance. Street racing probably didn't pay as well as working the supermarket checkstand, but it was infinitely more satisfying. If a customer decided to mouth off at you over the price of a pair of chicken wings, you had to grit your teeth and bear it. If another racer got snappy, all it took was a couple bumps to their rear to remind them who was in charge on the track.

And for the past two months, that had been Roddy.

Part of it, she figured, was pure luck. Most of the local high schoolers drove their parent's cars, and the boys from the community college, while enthusiastic, were reluctant to risk denting their polished paint jobs. They drove fast, but not rough.

Roddy's clunker had been bought cheap from a secondhand dealer out of town, and while she'd put the effort into polishing up its insides, what happened to the rest was the least of her concerns. The left backseat cushion had been ripped out and replaced with a plastic milk crate, crammed with empty chip bags and half-melted candy bars; the door to the trunk refused to open without a kick; there were three dents in the passenger side door. None of them had been caused by the same car.

So when the Aston Martin had rolled up beside her at the starting line, she'd squinted at it through her window and pegged the driver as some out-of-town university brat with fancy wheels but weak conviction.

Boy, had she been wrong.

There was a difference, Roddy figured, between Not Winning and Losing. Not Winning was what usually happened, on those weeks when she wasn't on top of her game and let someone slip past early on. Not Winning meant dealing with Vince's insufferable gloating, but knowing it didn't mean anything, because she'd get him back for it the next time.

 _This_ was Losing. The Aston Martin's driver could've left her in the dust, easy, but he didn't, because the sight of her in his rear-view mirror as she desperately flailed for the lead was probably one of the most hilarious things he'd ever seen. This was more than just a race to him — it was a game.

Roddy didn't think she'd ever hated anyone more in her entire life. (Not counting the scum of the earth who'd stolen her grilled cheese for a week straight in middle school, because middle school never counted.)

The two of them rounded a corner and Roddy wrenched the wheel to the right, riding up the slope of the canal and trying to weasel in beside the other car. Its driver caught on quick, shifting sideways, trying to push her out of the track to flounder in the sand. There was a jolt as she felt the side of the Aston Martin collide with her fender, and a hair-raising screech as it jerked away, trailing cherry-red paint flakes. Her right wheels lift briefly off the ground from the impact, and shuddered when they crashed back down, nearly sending her swerving into the pillar of an approaching overpass. The bottleneck was just ahead, and she'd lost her advantage. To the winner went the spoils, and this time it wasn't going to be her.

But, she figured, spotting Vince creeping up behind her, second place was always an option.

* * *

She came rolling across the finish line just in time to see Marty — the race's self-proclaimed head coordinator and "official" bookie — slap a hand across the Aston Martin's hood.

"We have our winner!" he declared. "Come on out and get your cash."

The size of the pot varied on how well the betting was going. Typically it landed in the range of sixty to a hundred dollars, but rumor had it that the new arrival had resulted in a pretty sizable pool.

The driver didn't emerge. Instead, he gave his engine a brief celebratory rev, then turned tail and screeched up out of the track, out into the desert. The stench of burning rubber lingered in his wake.

"Well," said Marty, running a hand through his patchy stubble. "Guess he wasn't interested in his two hundred bucks."

Roddy rolled down her window and cupped a hand around her mouth. "Hey!" she shouted after it. "I want a rematch!"

"He's gone, Hotrod," said Marty. He started thumbing his way through a stack of slightly sweaty tens. "Looks like Jasper's got it's own fuckin' ghost rider."

But two weeks later, the car was back. Roddy wasn't sure if the driver had heard, or if he'd just enjoyed beating her. Either way she was determined to make sure that enjoyment didn't last.

By the time she'd cruised through the bottleneck behind him, hers was trawling through the gutters. The passenger side had acquired another sizable dent; her apparently self-appointed rival's taillights winked mockingly in the distance. Again, Marty slapped an enthusiastic hand against its hood, and again the Aston Martin turned tail and raced off into the night.

And again.

And _again_.

By the fourth time, things had started to get old. Roddy left her car by the finish line and casually sidled over to where Marty was wrapping up the bets.

"Hey," she said, when the last begrudging gambler had left. "So, uh, you know the guy who drives the red car?"

"Aston Martin guy?" asked Marty, sliding a thick wad of cash into his wallet. "What about him?"

"He never claims his prize money, right? So, since he obviously isn't interested in it and I'm kinda the second runner-up here, I was wondering—"

"—if you could get your hands on the pot?" Marty finished. He raised an eyebrow. "Sorry kid, but you're gonna have to try harder than that if you want to get any easy dough off of me. For all I know, the guy's just waiting to cash in on his winnings at the last minute. You know how drifters are."

"I don't, actually," grumbled Roddy. She ran her tongue thoughtfully between her teeth. "What if I asked?"

"If he wants to hand the shit over to you once he's got it, that's none of my business. Hell, if he tells me to fork it over to whoever comes in second because he's got better shit to worry about, that's none of my business either. What _is_ my business," said Marty, "is kids like you thinking they run the show because their speedwagon pops along a little faster than everybody else's. You want to come up here with that attitude, you can go race somewhere else."

"But—"

"No buts," said Marty. "Go bug some other sap. I don't wanna hear another word about the winner's pot unless you're the one gunning first over that finish line. _Arrivederci_ , Hotrod." He pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose with a very deliberate middle finger. Roddy scowled.

"Fine," she said. "I'll get him next week, then."

"You want my honest opinion?" asked Marty. "He's not worth your time. Or you're not worth his."

"We'll see," said Roddy, narrowing her eyes. Race number five, one way or another, was going to be _hers_.

* * *

roddy did ethics class teach you nothing, cheating is _wrong_


	2. Chapter 2

knockout doesn't make any puns in this chapter, which is a sin, but on the other hand he uses the phrase "hoopty-looking," so it's a mostly excusable one

(if you think this is an invitation to send me puns for possible use in future chapters, you are _absolutely right_ )

* * *

Roddy left her car a little ways off the road and slid down the cement slope into the track, loose gravel popping beneath her shoes. Marty was down by the clumsily-chalked starting line, surrounded by a gaggle of teenagers with dollar bills dripping from their hands. There were a couple more newcomers in the vehicle lineup — a moody black affair that she recognised from the student parking lot at the community college, and somebody's beat-up yellow Camaro idling by the sidelines. Neither of them seemed like much, but her own ride had nearly been laughed off the track the first time she came around.

Then there were, of course, the usual suspects. She sidled through the gap between Vince's flame-job abomination and the Aston Martin, rapping casually on its blacked-out window with her knuckles.

"Yo," she said. "Open up. I wanna talk about, uh—" She paused, tongue stumbling preemptively over the words. "Allocation of funds."

There was a moment of silence; then the latch clicked open. She popped open the door and slid inside, settling comfortably into the curve of the passenger seat. Cushier than she was used to, but when the cushions of your car itched like bedbug-filled mattresses on a _good_ day, pretty much everything was. Flashy-looking radio, too. The car's driver had obviously spared no expense.

Then she froze.

The Aston Martin _had_ no driver.

"What the hell?" said Roddy, jerking back. "Is this some sort of joke?" She grimaced. "Is this Marty's deal? Am I being punked?"

"That one of your bizarre local customs?" someone said. The voice, she realised, was coming from somewhere in the direction of the dashboard, and had a metallic twang to it, as though spat through a particularly temperamental radio. Which, she thought, must be exactly it.

"No," she said, "it's—never mind." She squinted suspiciously at the steering wheel. "You drive this thing with a remote control or something?"

"Or something," said the driver.

Roddy rolled her eyes. "Wow, look out, we got Mister Cool and Enigmatic over here. Try not to cut yourself on all that edge." She drummed her hands against the curve of the glove compartment. "You got a name, Mister Cool?"

"Knockout will do fine."

"That supposed to reference your looks, or do you just punch a lot of people?"

"A bit of both," said Knockout. The smugness was palpable. Roddy got the feeling that if they'd been talking in person, by this point she would've punched _him_. "Now, I believe you mentioned something about an allocation of funds. I'm guessing you want to strike up some sort of deal?"

"Yeah, actually." Now that she got down to it, asking a disembodied voice to give up its hard-won prize money was slightly less awkward than asking a living being capable of looking her in the eye. Disembodied voices couldn't stare you down; they certainly couldn't see your ears turn red as you realised just how much of a dick move most people would consider this to be. "If you're gonna beat me all the time, you could at least claim your winnings" she said, trying to make it sound casual and not like something she'd been mulling over for the past three weeks. "Or, uh, let someone else take them."

"Would that someone else be you?" Knockout's tone was impossible to read.

A shrug. "Ideally. Or whoever else comes in second place, I guess. Which is also, you know, also usually me. Marty says if it's cool with you then it's cool with him, but I guess you, uh, can't really tell him yourself if you're on radio the whole time." She paused. "Is that even legal?"

"This is street racing," said Knockout, with the air of a particularly patient adult attempting to explain to their child that _this is the playground, dear, and we don't push people off the swings_. "As far as anyone's concerned, 'legal' doesn't exist. Now," he continued, before Roddy could interject, "to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I feel like just _letting_ you win. But since I really have no use for the money, and you're obviously quite enamored with the prospect of having it, I've got an alternate solution." The engine revved suggestively. "You drive."

Roddy gaped. "You're serious?" The thought of being allowed to so much as tap on the accelerator of this thing was enough to send her internal automobile enthusiast into a swoon.

"Of course not," scoffed Knockout. "Like I'd ever let anyone run the risk of scratching my flawless finish, much less the likes of _you_ — driving around in that hoopty-looking rubbish bin on wheels you call a _car_. But people see you in the driver's seat and a pair of hands on the wheel, and they'll assume the rest. I get my win, you get your cash, everybody goes home happy."

"Works for me," said Roddy. "But come on, _hoopty-looking_? Look who's talking, Mister I-Have-Color-Coordinated-Internal-Electrical-Systems." She glanced pointedly at his set of softly-glowing displays.

"Oh, poking fun at personal aesthetic decisions now, are we? What happened to Mister Cool?"

"He can come back when he's won us the race."

Knockout gave a noncommittal grunt, which Roddy took to mean that this particular conversation was over. Through the windshield she spotted Marty ambling towards the center of the track with a flashlight dangling from his hand, and clumsily shifted over into the driver's seat. Her feet failed to reach the pedals even if she stretched. Whoever he was in real life, Knockout must have been a giant.

The steering wheel was cool under her hands, and she squinted at a symbol etched in the center. "What's that?" she asked. "Logo for your racing club or something?"

He snorted. "Sure, if you can call it a club when there's only one bot in it."

"Sounds like a fun time."

"Oh," said Knockout, glee creeping into his voice, "it is."

Marty swung the light down through the air, and the race was on.

There was no denying that despite the lack of a physical driver, the Aston Martin gave a smooth ride. Roddy was accustomed to hearing at least twenty different clicks and creaks from the undercarriage every minute; going without them was almost surreal. The world passed by in a blur.

No games this time — Knockout pulled ahead and stayed there, leaving their competitors in the dust. Everything, thought Roddy, was going exactly according to plan. Already she was scheming ways of spending the prize money that wouldn't alert her mother to its presence. It wasn't that she actively objected to Roddy's street racing habit — or that she could've stopped her if she did — but Roddy didn't fancy facing down yet another lecture on the value of conserving your funds; sticking them in savings for a rainy day, as she'd heard it put. Her mother had not seemed to appreciate Roddy's cheeky observation that in the middle of arid Nevada, there _were_ no rainy days.

A sudden swerve jerked her out of her reverie, and the desert unfolded in front of her. "Woah," she shouted, twisting in her seat to watch the edge of the canal drop away. "Where the hell are you going? The track's _behind us_ , genius!"

"Sorry, my fleshy little friend, but I'm afraid we're going to be taking the scenic route this evening."

"You promised me a race!"

"And I'm giving you one." Knockout chuckled. "Have another look."

There was a dull roar from behind them, growing louder. Roddy glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the dim glow of the Camaro's headlights tailing them through the dark. "We're being followed?" She leaned back in her seat and groaned. "Somebody got a grudge that you failed to mention?"

"I don't feel particularly obligated to reveal the gritty details of my personal life."

"Yeah, and I don't feel 'particularly obligated' to cooperate with someone who's been lying to me, either," said Roddy, gritting her teeth. She tightened her grip on the wheel and wrenched it furiously to the right. "Pull _over_." Knockout's tires screamed in protest as they churned against the sand, but the car broke away from its streamlined path and careened towards a clump of scrub sprouting by the side of the road. "Is that why you let me ride with you? To keep some _guy_ from wrecking your ride?"

"Too much chit-chat," snapped Knockout. "Save it for later, fleshie, if you're still around." A jolt ran through the wheel and into Roddy's hands, and she jerked them away, wincing in pain.

"What the _hell_ was that?"

"For your safety," intoned Knockout, "please keep hands and feet inside the ride at all times. And," he added, as Roddy began to cautiously reach forwards again, "keep them _off_ the wheel, unless you fancy being hit with something a bit stronger than that last voltage."

"What kind of car has an _electrified_ steering wheel?"

"The kind — and do try not to hurt your miniscule human brain trying to comprehend this revelation — that's a little bit more than just that." He gunned the engine and shot away down the road, speedometer ticking towards the hundred-mile-an-hour mark.

Roddy threw her hands up in front of her eyes. "We're going to _crash_!"

"Believe me," said Knockout, "crashing should be the least of your worries."

The Camaro was grinding on their tail now. Roddy squinted at its reflection in the mirror, but failed to spot even the faintest silhouette of its determined driver. Her first thought was that maybe there was more than one remote-controlled car trying to make it big in the small town racing scene; that maybe Knockout and the owner of the Camaro had some sort of long-standing feud that, for whatever reason, they'd decided to settle tonight. It would certainly explain why it continued to match Knockout's recklessness, even as he careened through a deserted intersection and down the line of the intersecting road. You didn't have to worry about your safety when you weren't actually in the car.

(But, her mind added desperately, _she_ was.)

Through the window flashed a sign: _Beatty, 174 miles._ They were headed away from Jasper, out into the open desert. Roddy felt something like a stone drop into her stomach. Just how far was Knockout planning to go? Until the Camaro gave up? Until one of them ran out of gas? And if Knockout faltered first, how the _hell_ was she supposed to explain this to her mother over the phone at one in the morning? Provided she could even _reach_ her from out here.

"Knockout," she said urgently. "Turn around."

There was no reply. The Camaro bumped against the Aston Martin's rear, and its radio let out something like a shriek. It was a sound that mimicked the one Roddy was making internally. The thought of hiking back twenty miles through the dark was growing less appealing by the second.

Another stone dropped.

"Knockout," she repeated. " _Please_."

This time Knockout's response was to increase his speed until the speedometer needle was jiggling in the unmeasurable zone, reclaiming the distance between them and their pursuer. And then—

Later, Roddy would swear to herself that when it happened, she hadn't screamed. That the thought of skidding face-first against the asphalt from ten feet in the air was the least of her worries, and certainly not the first time she'd stared death in the face. That she hadn't closed her eyes, with the sound of terrible mechanical things shrieking in her ears, agonisingly awaiting the moment of impact — the inevitable dull pain that traditionally accompanied a bruised knee or stubbed toe, but magnified beyond comprehension. The ground, she thought, was going to slap her upside the head, and when it was done she wasn't sure whether she'd be able to stand up and slap it back.

All this occurred in the span of three seconds.

Second one, the car that was Knockout's, or now, more accurately, _was_ Knockout, collapsed around her.

Two, the force launched her skyward, shrieking, awaiting her imminent demise by painstakingly-pressed tarmac.

Three, the inevitable initiation of gravity on her helpless personage, rushing her down, down, _down_ —

Four: the catch. All the breath rushed out of her at once as four metal bands wrapped themselves around her torso. For a moment she thought this description was metaphorical; second five revealed that it was anything but.

She may have screamed again. But only briefly.

"You're a robot," gasped Roddy, feet kicking uselessly against the air. It felt like one of her ribs was cracked, but better that then her skull. "Oh my god. You're a fucking robot."

"And the human hotrod takes one for the team," said Knockout, blinking icily down at her. "Give her a round of applause, folks." He glanced up to watch the Camaro roughly screech to a halt in front of them. The sound was unnaturally loud; there was a ringing in Roddy's ears whose origins she couldn't place. "At least" he added, "once you have hands."

The other car shrilled something unintelligible before unfolding itself into — _oh, god dammit_ , thought Roddy — another robot. It gestured wildly first at Roddy, then Knockout, then back along the road they'd come.

"You know, Bumblebee," said Knockout, picking an invisible speck of gravel out of a gap in his plating, "the humans have a saying about this sort of thing. 'Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, and the third time, Mister Bond, is enemy action.' Now, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I'm sure we'll all feel much better about ourselves if we pretend that this is confrontation number _three_ , instead of the sad run of bad luck it actually is."

Bumblebee chattered indignantly, storming forwards with his fists raised.

Knockout held up Roddy in front of him, halting the Autobot in his tracks. "Ah-ah," he said. "Wouldn't want to risk harming one of your precious humans, now, would we?" He frowned. "Well. It's not _your_ human specifically, this time. But I know how you Autobots feel about the 'sanctity of life.'"

"I _knew_ it!" hissed Roddy. His grip went unfaltering under her pounding fist — just one. Her right arm was trapped at her side, slowly succumbing to numbness. "I'm your fucking collateral!" She looked over at Bumblebee. "You know," she said to Knockout, "I think I've decided I like him more than you."

He sniffed. "I'd say that's the most sensible choice you've made all day, if I wasn't so offended by your poor taste."

Another round of indignant chatter.

"What's he saying?"

"Damned if I know," said Knockout. "Now be quiet, fleshie, and let the big bots finish talking."

"Sounds like a pretty one-sided conversation to m—" A sudden squeeze cut her off mid-sentence. She was _definitely_ not getting out of this without a few bruises.

Knockout turned his attentions back to Bumblebee. "Tell you what," he said. "Since I seem to be in a deal-making mood this evening, I'll offer _you_ one. You don't call up your pals for the family reunion, and I don't run off to tattle on the big bad Autobot playing hooky at the races." He paused. "Or the big bad Decepticon." A shudder ran through him, as though he was recalling some unfortunate memory.

Bumblebee paused thoughtfully, then buzzed something irritated and held out a hand.

"What?" said Knockout. He glanced at Roddy. "You want the human?"

A determined nod.

"So you can steal a couple pot-shots once she's out of harm's way? Dream on."

"Hey!" said Roddy, wheezing. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"No," said Knockout pointedly. He clicked his tongue. "Better roll on out, Bumblebee. Wouldn't want to keep your _bossbot_ waiting for what I'm sure will be an absolutely thrilling report."

The Autobot stood staring at Roddy, as though considering making a last desperate grab for her, then let out an apologetic whine and collapsed back into the Camaro. Once he'd retreated a significant distance down the road, Knockout unceremoniously let Roddy drop to the ground. She skidded forward on her knees and groaned. Behind her, Knockout started speaking to the air. "Oh Breakdown, would you mind popping open a ground bridge? Keep it quiet. Wouldn't want to have to explain to Starscream why I decided to go jaunting off in the middle of the night again."

Breakdown apparently didn't mind. The vortex erupted out of the night, and Roddy curled up into a defensive ball and groaned. "Too bright." The skin of her hands was beginning to sting.

"Well," said Knockout, "thank goodness we're not on the lookout for things to compare to your immediate future."

Roddy stumbled to her feet, legs shaking, grit falling from her jeans. "You're just going to _leave_ me here?"

"Well, yes. What would people say if I came back to the ship packing the beginnings of an infestation?" A shrug. "Maybe you'll get lucky and buzzbox back there will decide to come back, though I wouldn't put it past him to simply assume the worst."

Being considered an infestation barely registered on Roddy's alien-o-lingo meter. "You have a _ship_?"

"Where do you expect me to spend the rest of my time?" said Knockout incredulously. "In a parking garage?"

"No, I just—" She faltered, a single determined thought working its way past the haze of panic and disorientation. "What about the race? You promised!"

"You fleshies really have a knack for single mindedness, don't you." He turned and began to vanish through, thought Roddy, the _glowing rift in fucking space._

"That's not an answer!" she shrieked after him. "I want payback!" And them, for whatever reason, she added, "Take me with you, dammit!"

She couldn't see his face, but knew from the tone of his voice that he was smirking. "Are you sure? I thought you objected to kidnappings."

"Fuck that, I'm not walking all the way home. Also," she added tentatively, trawling over her basic human fight-or-flight responses into serious death wish adventure territory, "I kind of want to see your stupid ship."

"Your wish is my command," said Knockout, turning back to scoop her up again. He held her at eye level and locked her in a stare. "Unless, of course, you're having second thoughts?"

Her mother was going to be worried sick.

Roddy shook her head. _Stupid_ , she thought. _Stupid stupid stupid._ And: _S_ _o much for race number five_. And: Maybe this would turn out to be one of those decisions where not everything was as bad as it seemed, and Knockout just happened to be the awful exception to what was really a very pleasant and agreeable group of robots. Maybe she would have such a lovely time that the prize money stopped mattering in the grand scheme of things, because she had gotten to see the inside of Knockout's stupid fucking robot spaceship.

"Well, well," he said, crushing that hope where it stood. "We _are_ in trouble." Then he stepped through the glowing rift in space, and everything turned cold.

It was looking to be a very long night.

* * *

sometimes i wish i lived in the tfp fanfic-verse, where every other line is a snarky retort and also your car sometimes randomly kidnaps you for shits and giggles

also, for reference, this is all taking place in some episodic limbo between the events of _speed metal_ and megatron's reawakening.


End file.
